" Is there anyone who really thinks that by reading any number of books on a topic you could consider yourself an expert?" Depends on what exactly "reading" en

" Is there anyone who really thinks that by reading any number of books on a topic you could consider yourself an expert?" Depends on what exactly "reading" encompasses. If you can work through a good book (say SICP) doing all the exercises etc and writing a lot of code, I'd be very surprised if you don't "level up" very fast. If you've worked completely through "C Interfaces and Implementations" by David Hanson, you should be a pretty good C programmer at the end. Working through a series of great books will amplify this effect. so yes you can achieve a lot through proper use of books but 21 days, no way.